Profiling A Nation

Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, Australia's biggest media company and allied to Microsoft, has teamed with IT services company, Acxiom, to create that country's biggest private data repository, according to this story. It will hold the cross-matched details of Australia's 20 million people culled from government electoral rolls, Microsoft-related Web sites including Hotmail and Passport, credit card reports, casino records, bank statements and a variety of undisclosed other sources to provide marketing profiles of the country's entire population. The plan is then to sell these to marketers, insurers, banks and others. Naturally, consumer advocates and privacy groups are wary. A similar Government-sponsored scheme, the Australia Card, was universally rejected by citizens more than ten years ago. Australians are generally not protected by any privacy laws. What do you think: is it ok for private enterprise to hold such detailed information on our private lives, offering these to the highest bidder? Is privacy dead?

Comments

Future without any privacy a good thing

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Now that governments and companies -- notably ones in Australia -- have the technology and the will to snoop on everyone and compile huge databases of detail on private citizens, stop to think who is left out of this snoop-fest. Companies and governments. Why are they special? Why are they not routinely snooped on by private citizens, and each other, with all details reported to the public at large, out our use? They collect info on us for their use. Turn it around!

We cannot put the genie back in the bottle; we cannot reverse technological and social trends and restore privacy to all citizens everywhere. But we can deny privacy to the snoops! Who will watch the watchers? We can. We will, to quote AT&T. The only rational response to steady erosion of privacy is no privacy at all, and be gung-ho about it! Lobby for laws requiring full disclosure of all government and business documents! Outlaw NDAs! Get the credit reports for corporations, public and "private." Subject corporations to the death penalty (i.e., revoke their corporate status if they commit felonies).

A single standard!